More and more French people are training in gestures of “FIRST AID” in mental health, a prevention approach to better understand mental disorders and encourage consultation, in a post-Covid context still marked by anxiety and depression.
In front of “panic attack” from a colleague, Aurélie Gaucher, a researcher in agro-industry, thus knew “identify the disorder” et “apply the protocol” to provide assistance, learned a few months earlier during mental health first aid training.
Isolate the person, make them breathe, then refer them to a professional: the actions are quite basic: “spontaneously, that’s probably what I would have done too, but the training made me gain confidence and responsiveness”this 41-year-old woman explains to AFP.
Valentin, 21, himself subject to mental disorders, judge “very useful” the training he followed at his university in Caen, even if it remained “a little on the surface”. “I am more observant, I try to pick up on signs of potential distress, especially with strangers”explains this student.
The mental health of the French, particularly that of young people, is still degraded in 2023, a constant trend since September 2020, in the wake of the Covid pandemic, noted Public Health France in October.
According to a survey carried out by the organization in December 2022, a third of French people questioned had an anxious or depressed state and one in ten people said they had had suicidal thoughts during the year.
“Bringing mental health into the cottages”: this is what Olivier Echasserieau, 58 years old, PSSM (mental health first aid) trainer for two years, liked to contribute to “fight once morest prejudice” on bipolarity, schizophrenia but also anxiety or depressive disorders, the two most widespread.
More than 86,000 people have followed the paid training of the PSSM France association launched in 2019 for individuals, a transposition of an Australian program lasting 14 hours, a number of participants greater than the objective of 60,000 first aiders trained by the end of 2023 set by the Government, according to the PSSM association, contacted by AFP.
“A great tool” and “a good starting point”
Accessible to all, this first aid training primarily attracts people who have already had experience or awareness of these issues.
Olivier Echasserieau indicates that he trains a majority of women – “although mental health is not gendered” – et “can affect everyone”.
In recent years, the government has “a lot of push for development” of these training courses, recalls Frank Bellivier, head of the psychiatry and addiction medicine department of the Saint-Louis -Lariboisière – Fernand-Widal hospital group in Paris, and since 2019 ministerial delegate for mental health and psychiatry.
These first aid training courses are, according to him, one “front-line devices that facilitate access to care”because one component concerns the referral of victims of mental disorders to competent professionals, without replacing them.
“Training is a good starting point, a great tool” to normalize mental disorders and the use of care, agrees Tonya Tartour, sociologist specializing in psychiatry and mental health.
But she remains reserved regarding the scope of this device because, she recalls, “behind, the (support) system no longer follows”.
Unions regularly denounce the lack of caregivers and inadequate resources for these pathologies, which lead to irregular care for patients.
Between 1997 and 2021, the number of psychiatric inpatient beds fell by around a fifth, from almost 100,000 to just over 80,000.
“Needs have increased significantly and, on the other hand, the supply of mental health and psychiatry has rather stagnated: the mismatch between needs and supply, particularly since the Covid crisis, has widened considerably”recognizes Frank Bellivier, aware of a necessary “upgrade”.
By helping to change mentalities a little, training might “restore the nobility of psychiatry” and attract more doctors and “more funds”, hopes Tonya Tartour.
